Colchester Guardian rescues nine people from Lake Erie (With video)

Nine people were rescued from the deep water of Lake Erie Friday night thanks to the efforts of the Colchester Guardian rescue boat and a calm voice from shore.

“Our first instinct was to go out and look out at the lake and see what was going on,” said Beth Oakley, after her husband Jim Oakley, a member of the Guardian boat team, was notified of a distress call on the lake. “We didn’t really expect to see anything and there it was right in front of our cottage, probably 500 feet out.”

Beth could see a lone light shining and heard panicked voices about 500 feet from shore just out from the cottage the couple own in Colchester.

“We could hear people on a boat that were obviously in distress so I yelled out to them … and I said ‘Are you OK.’ And they said ‘Yes we’re OK.” Beth said. “But their boat was in the process of sinking.”

While she was reassuring them that help was on the way, Jim was racing to nearby Colchester Harbour to man the Guardian rescue boat with three other volunteer crew members, all part of the Canadian Coast Guard auxiliary.

“All of a sudden I heard kind of panic. Someone said ‘Hold on to the boat, don’t let go of the boat,’” Beth said. “You could tell something was happening, (that) something was sinking. I told them to hang on.

“I couldn’t believe how fast, within 10 minutes, the Guardian was coming out, coming to get them,” Beth said.

The Colchester Guardian was dispatched after a 911 call was made from the sinking pontoon boat to the OPP.

Jim Oakley on the Colchester Guardian rescue boat, which is moored in Colchester Harbour and is manned by a group of 12 volunteers who responds to crisis situations or distress calls on Lake Erie. JULIE KOTSIS/The Windsor Star

“The auxillary boat was on scene within 12 minutes,” said Jean-Pierre Sharp, regional supervisor of Maritime Search and Rescue, located at CFB Trenton. “We tasked our coast guard auxiliary vessel the Colchester Guardian and we also have a lifeboat station in Amherstburg and we tasked them.

“The auxillary boat was on scene within 12 minutes,” Sharp said. “By the time the Colchester Guardian got there the boat had capsized. There were nine people on board and they recovered all nine people from the water.”

Sharp said two ambulances were on scene but “everybody refused” medical attention.

“This is what they train to do and this is what they’re equipped to do … and they did a really good job,” Sharp said of the Guardian volunteers.

“It was nine people that they were able to rescue as a result of this boat being here as opposed to the coast guard having to come all the way from Amherstburg,” Beth said. “So it’s a pretty important piece of equipment that we have and it doesn’t just serve this little community here, it actually goes out all the way to Pelee Island … Kingsville, Leamington, where ever there’s an emergency and maybe the coast guard can’t get there.”

Jim said the 33-foot steel Guardian, a 1972 former police boat purchased, refurbished and equipped through donations and volunteer hours is called out for five or six urgent calls per year. Twelve volunteers have been trained to do rescues and the boat is in its third season of operation.

But running the boat isn’t cheap – on average $5,000 to $7,500 per year for gas and $3,000 to $4,000 for general maintenance. Jim said the vessel is in need of two new – or slightly used – motors.

“The boat is a little under-powered right now,” Jim said.

He added there is a “desperate need” for ventilation inside the wheelhouse where the smell of gasoline is overwhelming. Two small ventilation fans provide an inadequate amount of fresh air as there are no operational windows.

Donations can be made through the group’s secure website colchesterguardian.org.

“Even $10, $20 can make a difference,” Jim said. “It doesn’t have to be a big donation.”

He said during Friday’s rescue, the crew used a Flir imaging camera – a piece of night vision equipment – recently donated by the Knights of Columbus.

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